look at the letter 'e'. This is a special letter because it's the most common

letter in all of English and there are more ways to pronounce the letter e than

there are ways to pronounce any other letter in English, so if you want to know

exactly how to pronounce this letter and you want to master your pronunciation

stick with me as we learn all about the letter E!

[Music]

okay so the letter e it's a vowel letter the vowels in english are a e i o and u

the letter e is the second vowel letter in english after the letter a if you

want to learn more about the letter a check out my video up here okay the

letter e is a vowel letter that is actually the most common letter in all

of english so it's super important maybe the most important letter for you to

learn actually in english 13 or 14 percent

between 13 and 14 of all english writing

is just the letter e that means if you read a book or a newspaper

13 of the letters is just the letter e okay it's the

letter e is everywhere nearly every word in english contains a letter e okay it's

really really important so how many ways do you think there are to

pronounce this letter have a think and today we're going to go

through all of those different ways and i'll give you advice on your

pronunciation we'll talk about some vocabulary that you can use some really

long words some crazy words and hopefully by the end of this lesson

you'll know all of the different ways to pronounce this and we'll have a little

test at the end okay so let's start with number one

okay so number one nice and easy to start with

the letter e obviously can be pronounced

e this is how it is pronounced in the

alphabet a b c d e e

we make this sound watch closely e

e your lips widen a little bit and your tongue sort of hovers

e e

e sometimes people call this the long e but don't always use that because it

doesn't have to be very very long it can be e e e okay but the important thing is

that your mouth gets wide e e

e we find this in really common words it's

very important because it's found in super common words like he

or she or we

or me

and also the verb to be

okay practice with me he she

we me

and to be

to be okay if you want to practice that better

or faster try going through all of them he she we me

he she we me he she we me okay and you'll get that

sound really really natural really really natural okay we can also

pronounce the letter e as e in words where it is a stressed syllable

so take a look at the word female

female okay female the stressed syllable is the first part

of that word fee and you can see the letter e there

that's the stressed part e so often in many words in english when

the e is the stressed part we pronounce it e

take a look at evening

evening evening

okay and female and even secret

secret okay female

secret evening

in those words one syllable is stressed the syllable with the letter e at the

beginning is stressed so we pronounce it e be careful because there are many

exceptions to this rule but in many words when the e is stressed we

pronounce it e okay you'll also find this

pronunciation of the letter e in words like chinese or vietnamese or japanese

okay e-s-e any word with e-s-e that e-s-e is

pronounced ease ease okay this is because of something

called magic e

don't worry magic e we're going to look at at the end of today's lesson but for

now look at words like theme and you can also see they have e then a

consonant and then another e that final e is called magic e okay and that's one

of the reasons why we pronounce these e japanese

chinese okay vietnamese

and theme and scene

okay practice those words we also pronounce the letter e as e in

greek words that means words in english that come from the ancient greek

language okay words like hercules you know the really famous

strong man hercules hercules okay but also plurals of greek words so the

single word oasis if you change that to the plural which

means many of you just add es oases same with crisis becomes crises and

thesis becomes theses okay that es on the end of words here is always

pronounced ease ease because they're taken from greek

okay so practice hercules

hercules and

feces and

crises and oases also we often pronounce the letter e as

e in words where it appears next to an a so the letters e a together if you look

at words like jeans

genes or meat meet

meet or even teacher

teacher teacher teach okay and

reach that ea here together is pronounced as

the e e okay so practice with me

teacher teach

jeans a nice pair of jeans and

meat meat

okay this is the same when we have two letter

e's together e e in words like free everybody loves free stuff right free

and agree agree

and the animal b okay the buzzing b

b agree and

free so when you see words with two e's together it's normally pronounced long e

sound e agree

be and free sometimes when you see the letters e and

i together e and then i in words like protein protein

sealing sealing and

receipt receipt okay when you go to buy

something you will get a receipt the e before the i is sometimes not always be

careful because there are many exceptions sometimes e before i is also

pronounced e in english e the best way to learn this is to listen to each new

word okay ask a native speaker or look up on an online dictionary for the sound

of each word when you learn it so you know is this e i pronounced e or not

okay so protein ceiling

and receipt

receipt okay also we can turn it around instead

of the e before the i we can put the i before the e

and that combination of letters is also pronounced

e in words like peace

peace and

briefcase briefcase when you go to work you carry

a briefcase also in the word believe believe you'll see the final syllable

there leave is iev so ieve believe believe okay so

e before i can be pronounced sometimes e and also i before e can sometimes be

pronounced e2 okay believe peace and briefcase

finally there are some special words in english where e is at the end of the

word and it's pronounced e usually they're words that are borrowed from

other languages especially japanese so words like karate

karate or karaoke karaoke both of those end in e

but they're borrowed from another language so we put the e at the end as a

e e sound okay practice again karaoke

karaoke and karate karate

okay so let's try some practice sentences with this

pronunciation of the letter e she is free to believe there is a bee

on the ceiling she is free to believe there is a bee on

the ceiling practice with me she is free to believe there is a bee on

the ceiling your turn

okay she is free to believe there is a bee on the ceiling you'll see all of the

different spellings in that sentence and hopefully the more you practice that

sentence you'll be able to get a good feel for when we pronounce the letter e

as e okay you can also try this sentence we see chinese genes on the beach

we see chinese jeans on the beach okay practice with me we see chinese jeans on

the beach your turn

okay well done let's have a look at the next way that we can pronounce this

letter okay the next way that we can pronounce

the letter e in english is as an e e

watch closely my jaw goes down e e

you'll know this from words like egg okay

this one is really simple to remember the letter e is pronounced er very often

in words that end in the letter e and then a consonant so look at the word get

you've got the letter e and then a consonant

the word met or bet or set or even longer words like hotel

hotel they all have the letter e followed by a consonant at the end of a

word okay there are exceptions to this rule too of course in english but

a good rule to remember is that if you see the letter e followed by a consonant

and it's at the end of a word especially short words like bet met set and let

it's usually pronounced

practice with me hotel hotel

get get

set set

and met

met okay well done

you'll also see the letter e pronounced air in words where you see the letter e

followed by a consonant and then another vowel so look at the word exit

exit you've got the letter e then you've got a consonant x and then you've got

another vowel i okay exit look at the word never

or ever

or level okay all of these words have the

letter e followed by a consonant followed by another vowel sometimes it's

another e like in never or ever or level okay

when you see that often in english it's pronounced e e

never level okay ever well done

also you'll find this in words where the letter e is followed by th okay things

like weather as in whether it rains or not

okay and together together they both have the letter e

followed by t h together whether okay often in words

like that the letter e is pronounced e other exceptions where we also pronounce

the letter e as a are words like else else and

center okay both of these have that e pronunciation

also the letter e can be pronounced e in words with e a again remember before e a

was pronounced e well in english ea can also be pronounced e okay so e a

in words like dead

dead or bread

or breakfast okay in dead you can see the letter e

followed by the letter a again e a but this time it's not pronounced e this

time it's pronounced er there's a really good example of this with the word read

read in the present tense is i read a book but in the past it's

i read a book but the spelling is exactly the same i know english can be a

little bit crazy sometimes but i read in the present and i read in the past so ea

can be pronounced e or air

and in many many cases ea is pronounced e

try these words weather

weather head

head dead

and breakfast

breakfast practice with me weather weather

head head

dead dead

and breakfast

breakfast all have that e pronunciation try these practice sentences with the

letter e as a every hotel breakfast i have in bed

every hotel breakfast i have in bed okay lots of words with air with the letter e

pronounced air one more time every hotel breakfast i have in bed

okay let's look at the next one number two is get to the exit or else you'll be

dead get to the exit or else you'll be dead

okay get to the exit or else you'll be dead

number three is the bread gets wet in bad weather

the bread gets wet in bad weather try and say this one as fast as you can the

bread gets wet in bad weather the bread gets wet in bad weather and you'll get a

really good feel for that e e sound okay practice with me the

bread gets wet in bad weather okay the next way number three the third way that

we can pronounce the letter e in english is

uh

er okay it's a really relaxed sound we start with our mouth in the same

position that you make the schwa sound in english

but this time we make it a little bit longer make sure you're vibrating your

vocal chords uh uh imagine it's trying to continually push

that sound out of your mouth not uh but uh

okay

uh okay we pronounce the letter e as uh in

really common words like her

and were

and person okay you'll notice that e and r

together e and are in her or were or person or even

verb the e and the r together usually means that that is pronounced

so if you see a word with e-r like refer refer you see the e-r and you know it's

pronounced uh practice with me person

person verb

her and

were well done also in words where you see

the letters e a and r together you'll love this e a can be pronounced in so

many ways in english this time e a and r together is pronounced

uh so in words like

earth we all live on planet earth earth e-a-r here is pronounced

er er

so if e-a-r is pronounced uh then words like

learn learn

and early

early okay uh lee early also words like search

search okay e-a-r is often pronounced uh

practice with me earth

earth make sure you get that th sound at the end of the word earth

earth then search

search search

and then learn

learn and

early early

there are also some loan words from french that have really weird spellings

in english so words that are a little bit longer that you see ending in e

u r they're not common words in english

they're very rare but these are words that english has borrowed from french

words like saboteur